Before it was collected as a compendium of official parts, sure, but most of the individual books (both the ones that made it into the current version and additional ones that ended up being rejected) were around. The Old Testament ones were already written down, and most of the Gospels were at least oral tradition very early on.
I believe it was over one hundred years before the Gospels were all written down, and early Christian sects had passionate disagreement over which texts were official or hearsay, but it’s not like they were completely without religious texts.
Put in modern terms, the Bible is a multiverse of fanfiction, with many different parts written by many different authors, some of the authors came later than others and wrote entries despite many of the earlier authors having abandoned their accounts long ago. Because of this there’s much disagreement as to which works are canon and which are just fanfiction. And later on when a compendium of the collected works was published, many works were excluded, and many had edits made for print that weren’t present in the original forum versions.
So the fandom has tons of opinions regarding which works are canon, and a few of the original forum posts were preserved so there is even more opinions but ultimately the forum was shut down a decade ago so mostly its all hearsay and various individual opinions and headcanons about it but finding the one true canon is basically impossible in part because there may not have ever been one true canon
Only partially. They had the Old Testament, which was a subset of the Jewish Bible. But more to the point, their concept of Christianity is, according to them, rooted in the Bible. But in reality, they haven’t read it.
Not reading the bible is not new. Reading the bible was something you literally were not allowed to do for like a thousand years in major sects like catholicism.
Honestly, having known a lot of them…I think they do. Or at least they think they do. They aren’t very self-reflective. They don’t have the cognitive dissonance about it.
At least at the local level. The people who are actually in elected office definitely don’t, that’s true.
That’s a very ahistorical view of what Christianity is–Christianity existed for decades (centuries?) before there even was a bible.
Before it was collected as a compendium of official parts, sure, but most of the individual books (both the ones that made it into the current version and additional ones that ended up being rejected) were around. The Old Testament ones were already written down, and most of the Gospels were at least oral tradition very early on.
I believe it was over one hundred years before the Gospels were all written down, and early Christian sects had passionate disagreement over which texts were official or hearsay, but it’s not like they were completely without religious texts.
Put in modern terms, the Bible is a multiverse of fanfiction, with many different parts written by many different authors, some of the authors came later than others and wrote entries despite many of the earlier authors having abandoned their accounts long ago. Because of this there’s much disagreement as to which works are canon and which are just fanfiction. And later on when a compendium of the collected works was published, many works were excluded, and many had edits made for print that weren’t present in the original forum versions.
So the fandom has tons of opinions regarding which works are canon, and a few of the original forum posts were preserved so there is even more opinions but ultimately the forum was shut down a decade ago so mostly its all hearsay and various individual opinions and headcanons about it but finding the one true canon is basically impossible in part because there may not have ever been one true canon
But also it’s more than just texts included in one source–depending on sect.
Only partially. They had the Old Testament, which was a subset of the Jewish Bible. But more to the point, their concept of Christianity is, according to them, rooted in the Bible. But in reality, they haven’t read it.
Not reading the bible is not new. Reading the bible was something you literally were not allowed to do for like a thousand years in major sects like catholicism.
Also true.
So how do the contents of the bible have anything to do with defining Christianity?
When the people make a huge gigantic deal about it, a lot; you have to point it out at every opportunity.
But they don’t care. They don’t mean the words they’re saying.
Honestly, having known a lot of them…I think they do. Or at least they think they do. They aren’t very self-reflective. They don’t have the cognitive dissonance about it.
At least at the local level. The people who are actually in elected office definitely don’t, that’s true.